*Mentions of miscarriage, child death/abuse, bloody violence, and drug abuse*

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The weeds keep multiplying in our garden, which is our mind ruled by fear. Rip them out and call them by name. Sylvia Browne

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The shaking grey was punctuated with flashes of light, tingling edges of darkness at the corners of the eye. High, tinny ringing echoed through it, drowning out the softer thump-thump-thump-thumpthat pressed and stretched, quickened with each breath. The warmth of the face contrasted the chills down the spine, the ice in the chest that shrank the lungs and shook the limbs. The air smelled sour with bile and septic, tinged with sterile metal and the hot, nauseatingly heavy taste of blood. It was overwhelming; the pounding noise, the hot-cold-hot, the reeling of the head, the screams of the wounded and the sirens…

Hard arms, warm and firm, wrapped around her shoulders, but she could only shake in the darkness, unable to catch her breath against the cold stone of the floor. Her fingers were tacky against her skin and smelled of singed blood.

The woman's strong fingers plunged into the heavily woven sack, digging into the flour within and dropping the handfuls down in the trough with a soft thud. She always loved that part, the drawing of the flour. Her hands, half the size of Mother's, were still too small to draw the flour, but she could mix and knead, could watch the sun as the house filled with the smell of rising dough. She and her mother would work on their sewing while waiting for the dough to rise, Verity on a sampler while Mother mended a pair of breeches or hose. She loved the repetition; the somber, steady pattern of flowers and lines slowly emerging from the fabric. Her mother's stomach was swelling as the bread did, but – just after the first rise – it too would be punched down, deflated and shrunk until it was time for it to swell again.

Three different voices murmured through the pounding of her head and her heart but their voices were like howls of wolves in the fog, one indescernable from the other, too close and too far. Someone tried to lift her and she shrank back, something wordless falling from her gasping mouth. She hit a cooling body, and fell forward and vomited.

The long, browned fingers of her first husband trailed across the embroidery in her lap, lifting a piece of hair that had fallen across her face. She was pretending to be asleep, having truly fallen asleep beside the fire but awakened as soon as she'd smelled him approaching. She lied to him every morning when he kissed her on the cheek and she replied that she loved him, but she did love moments like these, when he was finished with his day and first came home. Everything was always rushing for him; a rush to build a house, a rush to expand the community, a rush to fix the barn before the winter, a rush to fix the ships. Verity made herself an ideal wife and community member, good at brewing and baking and sewing, and out of all her suitors she had chosen Aeron because he mainly left her alone. In eight years or so she would need to either divorce him or leave him, move to a different village before anyone noticed that she wasn't ageing like she was supposed to…

The voices were much softer now, one especially close. The piercing blue and yellow lights dimmed as something moved in front of her, but nothing touched her. She was boxed against a wall, covered by a vast, looming presence, and its voice mumbled about everything and nothing.

Verity pulled Ignatious's body through the reeds of a riverbank in Delaware, mud staining her boots and the knees and hem of her dress as blood stained her hands and arms, shrubs and rushes dripping with midnight dew gently scratching her face and catching her hair. She hadn't wanted, hadn't wanted to kill him, but he'd recognized her, seen her in the arms of her third husband, waved to her with a flash of golden eyes. Ignatious had mercy on her in the Darklands; they were younglings together, competing with each other while waiting for assignment. She'd been there for half the time he had, though time was nearly meaningless in the twisting labyrinth of caverns and tunnels, so cold and so different than her home. Her body had ached as it fought itself and the magics coursing through it, and although she was strong she was also afraid. Ignatious battled and bested her, but did not kill her, as most of them were wont to do. A hundred and fifty years later, she saw him again. She had stopped coming to the meetings three years before, had moved to an entirely different state with intentions of travelling out west, and he'd still found her. She could not be found, not again. She would not be taken.

Her body felt heavy, stiffer, and she realized that she was still wearing her armor. The shining surface was marked with dark smears and splatters, and Alexandra dismissed it with a thought, though the lack of it made her feel naked and exposed.

The city above her was nothing but noise and light shining through grates and potholes, voices and debris dripping from the roof above her as droplets of stinking water fell on her skin, but she was too flushed and hot to care. Every droplet felt like a pin of acid on her naked skin, and she scratched and screamed and slid through the muck on the concrete floors. She'd shot and sniffed and consumed, anything that had been offered or left out in front of her, and she knew that if she'd been human she'd be dead, but honestly, she almost felt like it would be preferable to the spinning light inside of her head and the jangling noises inside her mouth, the aching of her teeth and her fingernails. She wanted water; she wanted her drugs; she wanted something to tear her teeth through; she wanted the subway to hurry up and find its way to her section of tunnel. She was angry and scared and numb and all she could do was wait until she no longer felt like an electrified corpse…

"…and one of the cats tried to eat the gnome again, the largish orange one with stripes. The gnome punched it on the nose, which started the fight, and now the gnome is living underneath the nest; I almost crushed the thing this morning. I still do not understand why you keep it, but it is your gnome and I shall not harm it willingly…"

The little thing wriggled and mussed his face against the blanket she'd quilted for him, kicking at her chest with tiny feet. She liked to make faces at him and watch him smile, his broad toothless mouth gumming at one of her fingers. They'd moved to Missouri when Philip handed her the child of the carpenter's daughter, who had died bearing his baby. She – calling herself Leta, at the time – knew how young the girl was, her tiny body swelling unnaturally while Leta treated the girl's morning sicknesses and pretended that she didn't know her own husband had applied himself to the girl. Leta lost him in an accident of her own design two months later once they were settled into their house, and the baby she'd named Justice died six years later of cholera. But for six years the child had been hers, making bread with her in their tiny kitchen, listening to the wolves through the open window, asking why he didn't have any brothers or sisters…

She reached out with a numb hand and grabbed at the broad shoulder in front of her, drawing it to her as it leaned to pick her up. She was more exhausted than she ever remembered feeling, cried out and left to dry in salt and bloodstains. Draal was as steady as ever, a solid blue mountain that she could tremble against without fearing a stab to the back. To the side she could smell AAARRRGGHH and Blinky, but she really wasn't sure if she was up to facing them. Whatever that Changeling had been, it and its ability to use multiple forms had scared the shit out of her. Thinking about it rolled her stomach again and she unthinkingly summoned her armor.

Draal noticed her watching them and slipped a hand into a pocket of his loincloth. Though it did not withdraw, Alexandra's attention was pulled to it, and she felt the tinny hum of the real gaggletack. Draal, she knew, was safe. Draal was always safe.

At her nod he passed the totem to the trolls behind him, who both handled it with solemn faces.

"When you are ready, Master Alexandra, we truly would welcome an explanation. After you are recovered, of course," Blinky said, hastily stepping backward when Draal glared at him. Alexandra warmed at the tiny protective gesture. She tapped on his arm, and he helped her to stand, though as soon as she did she felt like sinking right back on to the floor.

"I've got bandages in my room," she said hoarsely, and slowly started the descent down the bloodstained staircase, her hand gripped to Draal's the whole way. Her re-injured shoulder was steadily bleeding; she could feel it pooling under her armor and heard soft pip pip pips fall on the floor as they walked. Her top two eyes were both swelling; her nose stinging; her mouth sore and tasting of metal.

He'd clawed her neck and it too was bleeding; he'd bitten her arm.

He'd known her.

If she could keep categorizing, if she could keep walking, she'd be okay.

Her back was sore from when she'd been thrown into the ceiling of the library. Two of her claws were torn. Her knuckles were scraped. Her ankle twinged from when she'd fallen on the stack of broken televisions, but it wasn't sprained. Her chest and throat and head all hurt from the exertion and from crying.

One foot in front of the other, and again and again until she fell against her doorway.

Draal was the one to actually push the door open, hurrying them all inside before shutting it in the faces of the few trolls watching from the hallway. The room smelled more of her now than of Kanjigar; it was still lit by the crystal lamps she'd left on earlier. Alexandra wasn't sure if it was morning or evening now and honestly, it really did not matter. She'd been battered and beat and injured nearly every day of every month since Kanjigar had broken into her apartment and shoved the amulet at her, and all she wanted was a nice, long sleep, preferably one where she didn't have to adjust her position every so often to account for her injuries.

Alexandra lay down on the book- and scroll-strewn nest and awaited for her dream to become a reality. Draal rummaged around until he found her stock of herbs and crystals, while AAARRRGGHH settled himself in a corner and Blinky ran his hands over the texts she had left about, occasionally inserting a bookmark between the open pages of a tome and closing it gently.

I've been a librarian several times, Alexandra thought as Draal started dabbing at her shoulder. I always sucked at it.

"I don't know who he was," she mumbled, just quietly enough for Draal to understand. "I didn't know him."

"But he knew you?"
Blinky shifted, his hand lingering over a stone-bound journal. Draal was not very quiet. Alexandra mmm'd.

"This creature – this Changeling," Blinky said, shelving a book with a glance at the pair. "I have never heard of a Changeling who could change into multiple forms."
"Neither have I," Alex said. She raised her head so that Draal could fix her nose and put a cold crystal against her three remaining eyes. "There's nothing in here about one."

"Then they are either exceedingly rare, or exceedingly good at their métier," Blinky replied. "I admit – seeing a strange troll change into Bular before attacking me was rather shaking."

Alex pulled herself up halfway to look at him; she'd completely forgotten the incident.
"Are you hurt?"
"No, Master Alexandra, merely startled. You, on the other hand – "

His hand hovered over her injured face and she leaned backward immediately, flinching involuntarily like a struck dog. After a brief, startled pause, Blinky apologized and retreated.

"He changed into you," Alexandra said, wanting to defend her action but also wanting to explain. "Not during the fight, but before. I…shit, probably a few times before…"
"I do not follow," Blinky said, kneeling in front of her. "I have been impersonated? Within the past few days?"

Alex wasn't listening. AAARRRGGHH's behavior in the library, Blinky's flirtations. None of them were real. None of them were real.

"Have either of you noticed the other acting oddly? Since the fight, I guess. Any changes of behavior, or voice, or actions? Anything?"
Blinky glanced quickly over at AAARRRGGHH, who glanced back with furrowed brows.

"I…some words were said, I do not know if – "
"Talked about bridge, battle," AAARRRGGHH said suddenly, stepping further into the room. "Bad memories, angry words. Wasn't you?"
Blinky moved forward and pressed his hands against AAARRRGGHH's.

"My friend, I do not know what was said to you, only that it was not from my lips. Are you hurt?"
AAARRRGGHH exhaled heavily, his whole body settling, the shoulders relaxing, the hands loosening.

"Not from you. Good. Blinky did not hurt," he rumbled. Alex waved a hand at him.

"I suppose that wasn't you in the library, then? Earlier today, when we were talking about the bridge?"
AAARRRGGHH shook his head.

"With Vendel all day. Not seen Alexandra, not until fight."

"Then if that was the Changeling, why did the gaggletack not work," Blinky exclaimed, squeezing AAARRRGGHH's huge hands before stomping back and forth across the room. "We knew something was wrong, the accursed creature sneezed for Gorgus's sake, but the totem failed to reveal it! How could it have not worked?"
Beside Alex, Draal softly sank onto the bed, hiding his face in his hands. Alex's stomach dropped as well.

This was my fault.

Draal had given Blinky the fake gaggletack to protect her. Her nature, her dishonesty, her need for secrecy had nearly cost them severely. How many other Changelings may still be hiding in Trollmarket? How many had handled the fake gaggletack, how much had Alexandra missed in her desperate need to keep her secrets?

"…Blasted thing must be faulty," Blinky was still muttering, worrying with his hands as he paced. "We've got to find a way to foolproof these things and test them with certainty…"

There was no way to make an excuse for this, so Alexandra let him ramble until another instance occurred to her.

"AAARRRGGHH, when Draal and I returned from our mission, in the library – were you there? When I released the wendigo spirit?"

The gigantic troll shook his head, and Blinky stopped in his tracks.

"That was not you? But – old friend – I did not even notice…"

"He'd been watching you," Alexandra said. "Both of you, together. Close enough to mimic your habits and interactions perfectly, that's how he got away with it. That's how he knew about our plans; that's how he knew about the bridge piece."
Blinky's head shot around as he jumped in surprise.

"The bridge piece! Is it – "
"It's still there, Blinky, he didn't move it. He knew where it was, though, I saw him take it out."
All of the blood drained from Blinky's face, leaving it an ashen blue. He sank down to his haunches as AAARRRGGHH hovered over him worryingly, his hands over his head as he moaned. Alexandra tried to move off the bed before her injuries told her nope, nope, sit the fuck back down.

"Blinky, what…?"

"I nearly ruined it all," Blinky moaned, shaking his head over and over. His large companion hummed uncertainly, rubbing his hands over Blinky's arched back.

"Stone safe, still in library," AAARRRGGHH mumbled, to no avail.
"I could have doomed us all," the smaller troll continued to wail. Alexandra, unable to get her body to cooperate, smacked Draal on the arm and he rose to his feet, crouching before Blinky and gently removing the troll's hands from around his face.

"Blinky, what are you talking about?"

"The box," Blinky whispered. "I changed the box."

"What?"

"It was spelled against Changelings," he continued, his voice hoarse and desperate. "I exchanged it for a facsimile, a copy, an unenchanted replica. Any troll or Changeling could open it with ease."
Draal stared at him in disbelief, and Alexandra in horror.

"Why the hell would you change the box?" she whispered.

No wonder I couldn't open the fucking, fucking thing! Why the fuck did he change it out?!

Blinky briefly glanced at AAARRRGGHH, who stood a little straighter, and then he clasped his hands in front of him and breathed deeply.

"I did not want you to be unable to open the box, Master Alexandra, should the need arise," Blinky said, his every word pounding into Alex's ears like the sea against a rocky shore. "If anyone should have seen you unable to open it, there would have been panic."
"It was just fiddly," Alex said on rote.

He knows.

He knows.

Blinky sighed and glanced at her with something akin to regret.

"Master Alexandra, there is no use in farce. We learned the truth over a month ago."

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about," she said with deathly calm. Her heart felt like it was being stepped on. Her whole body was filled with ice. He knew, he knew, heknewheknewheknew he KNEW

"You are a Changeling, and that is…alright," Blinky said with a dreadful note of finality. "You see, I have been reading this book about accepting young humans who are in 'closets' and I've found it quite applicable in this situation – "
"You're accusing me of being a Changeling again?"

Alexandra's head was roaring, her hear pounding, but she actually wasn't feeling particularly panicked. Something in her noticed that nobody was shouting, waving a weapon, or threatening her. It was the calmest panic she'd ever been in.

"Please desist with the pretense, Master Alexandra, I am being perfectly serious right now."
"Changeling," AAARRRGGHH said, still kneeling over Blinky; when Alex turned to look at him he gazed back with perfect seriousness; the eyes of a steady general in the face of a friend. "Amulet chose you. No problem now."

"Indeed," Blinky said. "My previous reaction to the possibility was, I admit, quite horrible and I apologize for my behavior. You are our Trollhunter, for good or for ill. I do not think that Merlin's Champion would be chosen as someone who would betray us all to Gunmar, and therefore – Changeling or not – you have the support of AAARRRGGHH and myself."

"And me."
Draal turned around and faced Alexandra, his top-heavy body looming over where she sat.

"I have made mistakes in the past, regarding your kind. I should be proud now to fight by your side, for good or for ill. We have bled together; I would have it no other way."
The ice in Alexandra's veins turned to slurry; her painful injuries seemed somehow dulled; she was too exhausted now to keep it together, and she slumped back down onto the nest, hot tears running over her temples.

This doesn't happen to me.

This doesn't happen to us.

There's a catch, she thought, choking on something that could either be a cry or a laugh. In a distance, she caught Draal explaining his role with the fake gaggletack, to the dismay of the other trolls.

"Oh, god, fuck Kanjigar," Alexandra muttered to herself.

Suddenly she shot up, pain screaming through her body as she grabbed onto Draal to keep from falling back down.

"We are not telling Trollmarket about this!" Alexandra exclaimed, startling the other three trolls. Blinky's face scrunched in a way that she did not appreciate.

"Secrecy about what you are has nearly led us to ruin," he said, as she knew he would. "I believe that the time of hiding is over; we – "

"They'll kill me, Blinky, they won't care if I'm the damn Trollhunter," Alexandra yelled in response, ignoring Blinky's gestures to calm her. "You three are already too much, I can't trust the rest of Trollmarket not to put a knife in my back – "
"Master Alexandra, please, I merely meant – "
"At least let me heal from this battle before sending me to my fucking death, Blinky – "
"Will you please be quiet," Blinky huffed, stomping his foot angrily. "I am not suggesting we tell Trollmarket, imagine the panic! No – Vendel alone will suffice."
This put Alexandra on pause, briefly, before she got her second wind.

"Vendel is in the same school as Kanjigar and his council of dead assholes! I'm already on his shit-list, there's not need to make it worse."

"Much of this disastrous situation would not have happened if you had simply trusted us – "
"We already saw how well you would take it, Blinky!" Alexandra shouted hoarsely. "You damn near tried to get Trollmarket to mob me! I kept my secret to stay safe, and it was fucking necessary."

The other troll at least had the decency to look chagrined, and Alexandra turned away with a sigh. He had already apologized for that, at least.

"How the hell did you even find out."

"The Leoht Stone," Blinky said. He held a hand out to her amulet; confused, she summoned it to her palm and opened the back. The little yellow stone was removed and dropped into Blinky's fingers; he held it to a lamp to examine it.

"I was not previously aware – and I doubt that many trolls are – but the Leoht Stone does not merely grant immunity to sunlight. In order for a troll to be unaffected, he or she must have some human component to provide that immunity. The Leoht Stone, if used by a truly trollish Hunter, would have temporarily turned you human. Since it did not, yet you were unaffected by daylight, I surmised that you were, in fact, a Changeling. I assume that you staged the entire previous incident?"

Alexandra nodded numbly. That could have gone so badly. If anybody else had seen, if anybody else had known about that stone…

"Vendel knows about this, doesn't he?"
Blinky nodded grimly.

"It was he who told me of the stone's power. I suspect that he will not be long for discovering you, if he has not already. But – and you must believe me when I tell you – Vendel is not the troll you seem to think he is."
Blinky glanced at AAARRRGGHH then, who rumbled pensively.

"He believes in second chances," Blinky said. "He was one of the first to defend AAARRRGGHH after his defection, for instance. Your state of being is not the only attribute that Vendel will judge you upon. He will – he has – looked upon your character and your care and dedication for the people under your protection. I know that he admired your decision to be merciful upon the Changelings, even though he may had disagreed with it personally."

"There's still a difference," Alex whispered, settling back on the nest when Draal pushed her.

Blinky made to keep talking, but AAARRRGGHH knuckled forward, leaning over the nest until Alexandra was boxed in. He placed one hand upon his chest.

"Trusted AAARRRGGHH," he said quietly. "Bad troll. Gumm-Gumm. Murderer. Vendel and Kanjigar help find Krubera family."

Alexandra, prone as she was, could not help but shake a bit.

"I can't just trust someone like that," she murmured, quietly enough that he had to lean in. "You are still a troll. Both of us were stolen; both of us were experimented on; both of us were trained and conditioned as murderers, but you weren't Changed. No matter what you did you were the victim of your upbringing, but not me. Not us. Our nature was forced into us just as yours was, but we are the ones blamed for it. I can't trust him to look past that."

She watched as AAARRRGGHH deliberated on her words, his eyes searching her face as he thought. Then he straightened up and nodded.

"Understand," he said. "But think Vendel will too."

He straightened up. Alexandra watched as he turned to Blinky and Draal and gestured at the door.

"Need to check on Trollmarket," he said. "Tell what happened, heal wounded."

It was interesting to hear a note of command in his voice, even with the halting words. Blinky nodded in immediate agreement but Draal was hesitant. Alexandra took comfort in his warmth at her side, but AAARRRGGHH gently took the medicines and healing crystals from the smaller troll.

"Will stay. Draal go."

He was making Draal leave?

no

fuck

Alexandra refused to grab the blue troll and beg him to stay, but under no circumstances did she want him to go. He was safe; he was himself. She was injured and tired enough to admit that she felt safer with him around, and she watched him go without a word because she was an idiot who hated to rely on people and now she was stuck with AAARRRGGHH while bleeding upon her bed, probably about to be charged with telling her life story until everybody felt better and the world was rainbows and glitter and

She really didn't want Draal to leave.

A soft cloth and a foul-smelling poultice was applied to the bite on her arm; Alex didn't have the energy to fight him off, and finally just let herself be cared for. AAARRRGGHH's hands were huge but gentle and did not harm her further. He pressed another cloth into one of her free hands and she softly started wiping blood from her skin.

"I'm bleeding," she said, eager to get some words out before he began to talk. "I'm fucking wounded, I am not having a heart-to-heart right now, just let me fucking sleep."

"Won't sleep without Draal anyway," AAARRRGGHH said. He ignored Alex when she glared at him, acidly falling into her first and most trusted defense, sarcasm.

"I am perfectly capable of closing my eyes without a giant blue teddy bear, thank you."

AAARRRGGHH settled onto the floor next to the nest, big enough sitting down that he was still at her eye level.

"Couldn't sleep without Blinky, long time," he said. "Always tired, always watching. Blinky was better."

"I don't need Draal."
AAARRRGGHH gave her a side-eye that clearly said shut the fuck up.

"Draal safe. Blinky, AAARRRGGHH, not safe. Why?"
Alex flapped her bloodied cloth half-heartedly. She didn't have the energy to do anything but talk now anyway. Pathetic as it was, without Draal there really would be no sleep.

Her mouth moved of its own accord. Might as fucking well.

"The Changeling couldn't imitate his accent well enough to impersonate him," she said. "When he pretended to be you and Blinky it was…he was just different enough to be disturbing, but not enough for me to suspect anything. It was just…creepy."
"Bad things?"
"He flirted with me. In Blinky's body. In your body."
AAARRRGGHH snorted as if the very idea was amusing to him.

"I'm from the sister clan to Blinky, I can't be that hideous."
"Not close enough," he rumbled, making Alex smile. Even though flirtation was her usual modus operandi, sometimes hearing that certain people weren't attracted to her was actually quite comforting.

"I don't think he ever impersonated me, but I can't be sure now. Anything that anybody has said since that battle may not have been ourselves." We can't trust anything.

AAARRRGGHH made a low, thundering grumble.

"Stone safe. Friends safe. Rest is…"
"…Irrelevant," Alexandra finished, to the other troll's agreement.

They stayed quiet for a while, AAARRRGGHH whistling occasionally until Alex threw her bloody rag into a corner.

This changes nothing.

I'm not Changing in front of any of them.

If they try to take advantage of this, I'm fucking out of here. I'm not their spy either.

"Still angry…at AAARRRGGHH?"

Alexandra's tired brain derailed for a second. She tried to remember any time where she had been angry with AAARRRGGHH, and was drawing a blank.

"When was…? Oh."

That incident. Where she lost an eye, made him cry, and started Blinky on his Alexandra-sanctioned Changeling witch-hunt.

"That."

She wasn't angry. She wasn't. It was just…

"Said…jealous?"

Yes.

"Yeah," Alex mumbled, clenching her fist to make her bitten arm ache. The words didn't come as easily as they had before.

"Draal was a lucky fluke," she said. AAARRRGGHH made a curious noise; from the corner of one eye she saw him watching her intently.

"He knew since we had our big fight. He didn't care. He looked at how I had treated him, how I was, not…what I was. He doesn't know anything about my past and what I've done or been through. It didn't matter to him."

"Not easy," AAARRRGGHH said. "Gunmar's general, maybe spy. Nobody trusted AAARRRGGHH."
"But you had the chance," Alex whispered, her throat closing traitorously. "They forgave you. They were sorry for you. You were still a part of them; a stolen, corrupted part, but a part nonetheless."
Her wounded arm and shoulder burned with the next clench of her fist and she tried to steady herself with the pain. This talk sucked.

"I can't…"

Fuck

"I can't ask for that kind of acceptance. Dammit. I can't ask for forgiveness. They've placed blame on me for something that was done to me and I can't ask them to forgive me, I will not…"
Her words closed on a squeak and Alex let the tears come. This wasn't her worst and they'd seen her here before, and the enormous bear-hug that AAARRRGGHH haltingly tried to wrap her in without exacerbating her injuries or moving her was both comforting and hilarious.

"I…apologize. For that time I yelled at you," she whispered into the hair of his chest. He'd settled for having one hand under one side of her back and the other resting on her uninjured shoulder. She was still lying down exactly where she was, so it really kind of sucked as a hug, but the gesture stood.

She wiped her face on her bandages and charged AAARRRGGHH with helping her to her feet. Her shoulder wasn't going to do anything useful with what she had on hand, and if she kept re-injuring it like she was it was bound to heal wrong, so off to Vendel's they went; hopefully could help with her more minor wounds as well.

Alex didn't let AAARRRGGHH carry her again, but he was a beautifully solid arm to lean against. Lying down for a few minutes had helped vaguely with her exhaustion, but her legs were committing mutiny at the return of movement.

Nobody stopped them as they walked, and AAARRRGGHH had the sense to lead Alex through the quicker, less scenic routes.

As he gently lifted her over a protrusion of stalagmites, one more question passed his lips.

"Family. Should w-"

"No."

He stepped back at the hard answer, and Alexandra steadied herself, forcing her voice to be gentler, especially since they were now in the open.

"No," she said again. "They're not going to want to know me, and we are not going to try. I gave that up centuries ago, we're done with it."

"AAARRRGGHH's family happy."
"You were a war hero. You were a troll."
"But Trollhunter – "
"Because simply being their daughter isn't enough? We're not contacting them," Alex said sharply, her voice echoing sharply through the chamber. "I looked it up, they already wrote me off as dead. If they're happier that way, fine. I'm not the daughter they lost, not anymore, and they're never going to be the family I remember. What happened happened, and there is no returning from it. Not this time. Please: drop the subject, AAARRRGGHH. This is different than you."

They continued walking in silence, Alexandra fuming guiltily from her outburst while AAARRRGGHH mulled on her words. The light of the Heartstone just broke across their faces when a hard elbow gently nudged her bruised bicep.

"New family better," AAARRRGGHH said.

Her throat closed on the reply.

Point.

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.

.

This entire chapter was a ride and a half and the whole time I had no idea what was going to happen next. Usually I have some general idea that I flesh out and build around, but this time everything just sort of happened.

Alexandra has had a hard life and she'd allowed to have a security blanket, and if that security blanket is Draal, then so be it. She's finally found somebody to fully trust for the first time in her life and I'm not prepared to take that from her yet. Bottling up your emotions really actually kind of sucks for you, and it's not weakness to really let it out once in a while.

Nearly four hundred years is a long time to be living among humans, and Alex has lived several lifestyles and had several families. It was significantly more difficult to be an unmarried woman back in ye olden days, and she mostly married for security. I'm using the HC that Changelings, like ligers and mules, are sterile and thus unable to have kids. I think that she actually is quite a family woman, but hasn't had a whole bunch of opportunities to be one. She's the kind of person who talks to babies and children as if they're adults, with handshakes and everything.

I wasn't expecting Alex and AAARRRGGHH to have a heart-to-heart but they really do have a lot to go through. AAARRRGGHH has had Blinky and Vendel and Kanjigar to support him and help him, but Alex has been by herself, obsessively keeping everything close to her chest and on constant watch for someone figuring her out. She needed a chance to let things go with someone who she knew would understand, and that person was not going to be Draal.

As far as big reveals go, I was actually kind of getting tired of them. There needed to be a softer chapter somewhere, and this turned out to be it.